Ut oh... What's going on here?
Finally getting a chance to do some overdue repair and maintenance on Barney. When I installed the new brakes last fall I noticed a fair amount of metal in the rear diff gear oil. I didn't have time to mess with it then so I just drained and refilled with fresh. This is what has kept me from running it on any road courses since then. Today was the day to find out what was going on.
Here is just what came off the drain plug...
Thankfully, I'm pretty certain it is pinion shaft, crush collar or bearing related and not the locker or gears. You can feel the pinion bind up randomly when spinning it by hand, sometimes bad enough it's hard to turn by hand. The ring gear looks fine to me and there is no extra play anywhere I can find.
This bearing on this end of the pinion looks fine, must be something further inside...
This also gave me the chance to get used to doing work on my drive on lift. It's gone okay but I need a few short jack stands with pads on top to really help make it better. These rolling jacks don't have enough throw to fit under my frame and lift the car high enough in one shot and my jack stands are too tall to get under the frame with rolling jack all the way up. I made it work today but it could be much easier with shorter jack stands. Didn't hit my head on a ramp once either...